Jurriaan Mors, participating in his first tournament, peered longingly at the Green Hill Zone and commented that this is what you think about when you remember Sonic. The common myth that everybody who takes part in Mega Drive tournaments is some incredible 16-bit wizard was swiftly dispelled in the first round of the tournament. Indeed, only four people actually managed to complete the round in under the 2-minute 15-second deadline with the rest either being too tardy or too dead to burst open the end of level cage and release the cute animals. Hell, even less were able to pull off the level select cheat, even though it was written down (up, down, left, right then A and start together).

Paul Holbrook collected a considerable number of rings, however, found himself beaten by the timer. Giel van Rijn would have finished the level, had he not wasted considerable time fighting with the loop in Green Hill Zone 3... his fellow countryman easing by this section commenting that "I learnt from your mistakes", although was defeated by Dr Robotnik and not the clock. Jay Townesend won, with an incredible 209 rings collected in 1:45. A fun little ring hunt through the Green Hill Zone was a great start to the day.

Next up was the awesome tennis sim, Pete Sampras Tennis, a game which has fluid and responsive controls and in which everything is executed perfectly, making it a highly playable Mega Drive game that has stood the test of time. However, in order to mix things up a little bit, this would be a team event, with competitors paired off at random. Kelly Newsum survived the qualifying round to be paired off with defended Champion, Jay Townsend. Fate placed the two Dutch players alongside each other and they quickly showed their worth, knocking out Kelly and Jay with a 3-1 scoreline.

The highlight of this entire game was Giel van Rijn getting in the way of Jurriaan's return shot and costing the pair a point. The pair played Gareth Smith and Joćo Pires in the next game and were beaten 3-1. Pete Sampras Tennis was sheer, crazy fun, and the team game element was extremely novel. The final round saw Gareth and Joćo separated and it quickly became apparent that Joćo was the one carrying the team, as he swiftly beat Gareth 2-0. A lively little affair; we moved on to the next round!

Eternal Champions was thrown in at the eleventh hour. It has been a game used in the lower division form the 14th - 24th tournaments and was affectionately known as "Poor Man's Street Fighter". A swift and enjoyable fighting game that looks kind of cool and possesses the ability to taunt your opponent. Derek Wheatley gets special mention for performing Trident's water mode move; something not enjoyed since Mr Smith fought Captain Maltby at the 15th Tournament. The final four players; Derek, Jay, Derek and Joćo all gave excellent accounts of themselves and the semi-finals were both extremley close games, before an even tighter final, in which Jay scrapped the victory over Ross. An industrious and respectable round, which could have been won by any of the four semi-finalists.

The nine-players at this stage of the competition were conveniently grouped into three groups of three and were then unleashed on the tracks. Micro Machines '96 remains an irressitablly fun title, with the opportunity to speed around the various courses and bump your opponents from the track to their doom.

Micro Machines '96 also gives the opportunity to have the racers re-named and numerous ones of these remain unchanged from the earlier days of Mega Drive Championshippery. The oriental gentleman, originally Chan, is named "Jim" in honour of Jim Mizutani (9th - 11th Mega Drive Championships) while the attractive blonde, Cherry, retains the name "Andy" after Andy Jackaman (9th - 10th Mega Drive Championships). The obsese man, Walter, has adopted the name "Soviet" owing to the nickname of a slightly rotund school friend.

There was a considerable amount of fun and foul play, but a disappointing lack of the C-button (it causes the horn to beep and is an essential Mico Machines skill). Joćo Pires earned himself the nickname "Tosh" by selecting the character formerly known as Spider, but now sporting the nickname "Tosh" and Joćo will, hereafter, be referred to as Tosh, who won the tie convincingly; dispatching Jay Townsend and Paul Holbrook in the first round, before showing his dominance over Ross Willett and Gareth Smith. A special mention must also be made to the game in which the avatars were tactfully named Hitler, Goering and Cock. They raced fearlessly around the track and Hitler won for the first time since Stalingrad.

"You just place them in groups of three and then you can build up the combos" declared Jay Townsend modestly, as he completely crushed every single one of his opponents. This fun little game of cutely assembling beans was swiftly turned into a rout. Credit to Giel van Rijn who was drawn on the quieter bracket and progressed happily to the final where he was swiftly dispatched by a considerbly more practiced opponent. Brutal. Jay Townsend won comfortably and we broke for lunch.

There was something of a guard change midway through the 2017 Mega Drive Championship. Jurriaan Mors and Giel van Rijn left to continue their tour of the UK, heading first to Nottingham Castle and then on to Leeds. Stepping into the tournament was the elusive A.N. Other. The show carried on and there were five more awesome 16-bit titles left to play.

For decades, Mega Drive Championship competitors had been showing their lack of ability by talentlessly whacking their A-buttons on the Streets of Rage 3 fixtures. As opposed to playing the gritty game beautifully and enjoying the incredible responsiveness of the fighters; special move, followed special move, followed special move... completely nullifying the "special" part.

It was with immense satisfaction when both Paul and Jay, in the first game, pressed their A-button only to have their police friend tear up in his car and litter the screen with fire and for it not to have any impact upon either player. Aside from that, the first game was a really dull affair, with neither player willing to move forward and activate the array of enemies that would attempt to batter them both; their display of cowardace brought great shame upon them. The second pair tentatively edged forwards and half-heartedly engaged the CPU, however, it was Ross Willet and A.N.Other who proudly launched into the level activating as many enemies as possible, with A.N.Other's tactic of getting stuck in against the CPU being his glorious undoing! The highlight of this tie being after the defeat of A.N.Other, the vanquished insisted on hurlling Ross into a pit! For a moment it looked as if Axel might be tossed all the way across the dark drop, however, he smashed into the road block on the opposite side and feel down. :)

The semi-final took place on the elevator stage (Round 7) and there was nowhere to hide from the enemies... or so it seemed. In what was easily the game of the tournament, Gareth Smith proceeded to walk to the top of the elevator and leap upon it, leaving Jay to battle the array of falling foes. Jay endeavoured to remove Gareth from his perch, but even throwing knives at him, did little. Ironically, with Jay having battled pretty much every foe in the elevator stage, a yellow signal caught Gareth and chucked him from the elevator and to his doom. Ross went on to face Jay Townsend in the eighth stage where, if they could hold on, they would face better dressed clones of the bosses from stages 1 - 5 before a final fight with Mr X. Obviously, the did not get anywhere close to these guys and Jay took the win. Streets of Rage was easily the game of the tournament.

The Tournament Administrators had been indecisive as to whether or not to include Virtua Racing for a second year running. Virtua Racing had been a highly popular title in the previous year and was, somewhat surprisingly, rated in the "top 3 games you would like to see return in 2017". However, it was finally thrown into the mix. I haven't played this game since last year claimed defending champion Jay Townsend. Indeed, he was in good company, as neither had anybody else. Indeed, the mysterious A.N.Other had not played Virtua Racing in a decade and, had the Dutch players not retired for the day, had probably never played this title before.

Players raced in the versus mode, but their competitor was the clock. The four individuals with the fastest single lap time would be awarded points. The sounds, graphics, handling and track variety are all abject tosh, but there is something that makes Virtua Racing elusively awesome and, after over a 15-years of tournamental appearances, we finally feel in a position to speculate what it might be: Virtua Racing is a retrospective promise at what the future of videogames might hold. While the Playstation transformed videogames from 2D to 3D, it is nice to sit back and enjoy the great-grandfather of modern gaming, it all its hideous glory.

In what was a surprisingly tight game (with less than 2 seconds separating the top four) Tosh took the victory with the only time beneath 41 seconds. Half a second separated second place A.N.Other from fourth placed Derek Wheatley. Whether these performances were in themsleves any good in a matter for any speedruns that happen to be on Youtube.

The sequel to WWF Super Wrestlemania was met, rightly, with a considerable degree of scepticism. In the past, Wrestlemania has always been a spectator favourite, with those forced to play it often oozing with contempt. Royal Rumble had been promoted as being "better than Wrestlemania", however, the sad truth is, there are few games worse.

Kelly Newsum remonstrated that she was not going to play A.N. Other with an unplugged controller. The mysterious A.N. Other won their first round tie, much to the gratitude of Kelly, who did not want to play another second of this tosh. Ross Willett, quickly discovered how to score some cheap wins and while his first round opponent, Paul Holbrook, gave a relatively good account of himself. Ross faced and quickly dispatched A.N. Other who was pleased not to have to play a further game of this dismal brawler.

Ross proudly announced he ended his "Jimmy White streak" on this game, by defeating Derek Wheatley, as it became the first round he won and thus scored maximum points. Ross may soon return to his "Jimmy White streak" for future tournaments, as this game was so poorly received, it is highly unlikely to make a return at future events.

Mega Bomberman is a tournament favourite. In these more innocent times before terrorism became mainstream, there is something blissfully innocent about dropping bombs on the screen and trying to blow up everybody else. It is also incredibly fun (Bomberman, not terrorism, we do not condone terrorism) with an array of power-ups, cunning level design and a countdown timer if the players prove ineffective at killing each other, the screen falls down causing the arena to shrink and become even more intense.

Kelly Newsum once again complained to A.N.Other that he had not plugged her controller in, however, the myseterious A.N.Other remained unconcerned with such sportsmanship. In the shambles that followed, A.N.Other's aggressive kamakazie style proved ineffective, whereas Jay Townsend's collected competence allowed him to advance to the final, with Kelly taking second.

Ross Willett and Tosh joined Jay in the final and, in a tight and epic bombing battle, Ross and Jay emerged as the most likely to take the round. However, it was in a shameless act, Jay Townsend proceed to take the victory by trapping both himself and Ross with a number of bombs. Ross was killed, Jay's cute llama thing was killed, nobody advocates winning by sacrificing the cute things. :( We expect more compassion from our Mega Drive Champion in 2018!

And so the final round of the tournament began, the adventure of 16-bit gaming was drawing to a close for another year, with that old favourite, Super Street Fighter 2. Sadly, there were to be no early round shocks on the cards and, on paper, the random draw might as well have been seeded. A.N. Other, Tosh, Ross Willett and Jay Townsend were all given weaker opponents in Round 1 and all progressed very comfortably to the semi-finals.

Still, defeat on Street Fighter 2, is still an amazing experience. The responsive array of varied characters, the special moves (or in the case of the Round 1 defeated, watching their opponents perform special moves... seriously, it isn't that hard, a quarter circle and punch will often launch a fireball). Major credit goes to Tosh who provided the epic Raśl Juliį quote from the awful Street Fighter movie. There were no "almost" games this tournament and in a repeat of last years Street Fighter 2 round, Jay and Ross faced off in the final game of the tournament, with the result again providing a crushing victory for Jay. Such is Jay's Street Fighter advantage that, when this game returns in the future, we might restrict him to having just one fighter... and that fighter will probably be T.Hawk... and he will probably still win.

The Tournament:
Paul Holbrook was easily the biggest shock of the event, with impressive performances across a number of titles, yet he was unable to score a single point. He was unlucky to be drawn to play the Pete Sampras Tennis qualifier, competently collected rings on Sonic 1, but was beaten by the clock, gave the most convincing performance against Ross Willett on WWF Wrestlemania and ran Jay Townsend close in the first round of Streets of Rage.

The story of the competition, however, had to be Jay Townsend, who convincingly dispatched all before him for a second year running. Had A.N. Other's suggestion, that his points be doubled for playing in just half of the tournament plus a bonus ten-points, been implimented then Jay would still have won. His awesome performance also pushes him into the overall tournament top 10, which is an incredible achievement.

The 2018 Mega Drive Championship has not yet been contemplated, however, such is Jay's dominance, everybody else seems destined to play for second. Fortunately, there is considerably more to the Mega Drive Championships than the competition and everybody who participated was able to enjoy the nostalgia of the classic 16-bit era of videogames and the unique challenges and atmosphere that the Mega Drive Championships provide.